BigBasket Becomes India’s Newest Unicorn With $150 Million Investment

Supermarket Grocery, which runs and operates the online grocery brand BigBasket, has received $150 million in a financing round led by South Korea’s Mirae Asset- Naver Asia Growth Fund, UK’s CDC Group, and Alibaba, said the company on Monday.

The deal also marks CDC’s first deal in the Indian startup spaceCDC Group, the UK’s development finance institution, said on Tuesday that it has invested $40 million in homegrown grocery delivery firm BigBasket.

The investment in Supermarket Grocery Supplies Pvt. Limited, which owns and operates BigBasket is along with an investment of about $60 million from Korea’s Mirae Global Asset Investments, another new investor as well as China’s Alibaba investing $50 million, according to Registrar of Companies (RoC), and media reports.

The investment is part of a bigger round of $150 million that BigBasket is raising at a valuation of $1.2 billion thereby making it the latest entrant to India’s coveted unicorn club of startups.

“We have a unique opportunity to build one of the largest grocery businesses in the country in the country and we expect the capital raised in this round to continue to enable us to do just that,” said VS Sudhakar, co-founder of BigBasket.

Big Basket competes with the likes of SoftBank-backed Grofers, Walmart- backed Flipkart, and Amazon. Big Basket plans to use the newly- infused funds to increase the development in its supply chain capabilities and developing new reseller channels. Big Basket last raised $300 million in February 2018 as part of its series E financing which was led by the Alibaba Group.

This round that also included an element of secondary shares, gave the company a post-money valuation of $850 million. The funding will help Big Basket battle these companies which have deep pockets and have been aggressively growing in this sector.

Followed by this Big Basket makes three acquisitions as it forayed into different services as such as milk delivery in a bid to increase frequencies in transactions.CDC’s statement said. “Our capital will directly contribute to a substantial projected increase in smallholder farmers supplying the Bigbasket brand, thereby boosting local income creation and living standards,” it added.

Srini Nagarajan, Managing Director and Head of Asia at CDC India Advisers, said “Key to CDC’s investment approach is creating a meaningful difference in people’s lives. This is done by backing businesses that fuel job creation to support economic empowerment within communities.

This is the reason behind the CDC’s investment in SGSPL and brand BigBasket.” BigBasket’s fundraiser at a unicorn valuation was first reported by Mint on October 29 last year, and that it was looking to raise $300-400 million from existing and new investors.

The company last raised $300 million led by Alibaba in February 2018. Sands Capital, International Finance Corp., and Dubai-based private equity investor Abraaj Capital participated in the round.

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